As a Bulgarian who lives and works in France, yes. Ffs multiple very high profile French authors, thinkers, theatre directors are originally Bulgarian (Tzvetan Todorov, Galin Stoev come to mind, there's also a lady whose name I can't recall) so even in very conservative areas they're accepted, let alone in scientific areas.
Even just the casual dismissal of my attempts to ask to speak a common language (English) - them switching to German/French whenever there was at least one other speaker of the language - even though the firms declared the working language is English...
Where I live if a person who doesn't speak our language comes into the room we all switch to English so the person can feel welcome.
Stuff like credit cards issued in my country simply not working and them saying things like "yeah well we don't trust these eastern banks" with the typical "zomg another poor schmuck"-look...
That sounds like Germany and their obsolete banking system. No idea how things are there, but in France that hasn't been anything resembling my experience. Yeah I get the occasional "I detected a small accent there, where are you from? Oh cool, you speak very good French!" which doesn't bother me, but that's pretty much it. And for what it's worth, some Bulgarian banks are shit and don't work with French bank cards for whatever reason (naming and shaming: Unicredit Bulbank flat out told me they don't work with "some German banks" when my French card was not working on a POS terminal from them).
> Even just the casual dismissal of my attempts to ask to speak a common language (English) - them switching to German/French whenever there was at least one other speaker of the language - even though the firms declared the working language is English...
> Where I live if a person who doesn't speak our language comes into the room we all switch to English so the person can feel welcome.
Yep, French people have that bad habit. It's mostly out of shame in my view though - their English is usually not perfect, and they don't feel comfortable expressing themselves in it, running back to their comfort zone at any opportunity. It's shitty towards people who don't speak their language.
Even online in english spaces (big subreddits for example), I see french people switching back to french in the middle of a thread if they recognize each other, really rude IMO.
I don't know what you're basing this on, but I don't have the same perception.
In the US, there is an obsession with categorising people based on their skin colour and religion. Politicians talk about "people of skin colour X" as some homogeneous group that is all the same (we need to win the Latino vote so we'll say this and that). The financial and healthcare systems literally take into account your skin colour.
In France, people generally don't give a shit. It's illegal to categorise people by skin colour and religion, and it's illegal for your employer to ask about it. They can't discriminate based on anything like it, and it's taken seriously (not "oh just have money to sue" seriously, report them and they'll be in massive trouble seriously). In France, everyone naturalised is 100% French. There are tons of North African (Maghreb) descendants, including many muslims, and also lots of people from other parts of Africa, and South America, Asia, Europe. 1 in 4 French people has immigrant origins. Oh and also, the majority of France's population is not religious, which everyone is very accepting of alongside the religions. In the US there are states that forbid atheists from holding office ffs.
- small exceptions - populist racist politicians, the main ones of whom have literally been fined for their racist remarks, and mostly old folks who believe them. Once in the bus in Paris an old man said something vaguely racist (of course it's one like her, refering to a woman of African descent speaking loudly on the phone), and was loudly and agressively criticised by multiple other passengers. Not saying it happens generally, but most people are very open and don't care about others' religion/skin colour/origins.
Julia Kristeva? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva
The French word to describe the culture I was exposed to at work would be "beauf". What kind of talented person would take a pay cut to work in such an environment?
Doing harmful jokes as well as dismissing, making fun and looking down at those that don't follow some abstract definition of "being normal" are deeply ingrained in the French culture (and also a source of pride - along with the whole french culture). Few are the people that understands and recognize this.
They sincerely see that as just humor and jokes, without realizing that it hurts. And I guess that being a foreigner there makes it worse, since you're even more unaware of it and different than their "norm" (whatever that is).
As a french, it took me an emigration to realize that this was - in fact - not normal, but actually a harmful and toxic behaviour that is not acceptable elsewhere.
If it's just humour and jokes, then why do all the jokes have to be about about not being a man or not being white?
The people making those jokes are simply intolerant and are biased against others at best, but using humour as a cover.
And as I said in another post, I'm French, my native language is French, the only difference between me and most of my French ex-coworkers is my skin.
I would not have looked for a job elsewhere if it wasn't for this situation because I didn't speak English very well. I had an awful accent during my first two years at Segment, and yet I felt so oddly accepted. I felt more accepted at a US. company working from my home in Europe with a terrible accent, than in my own country where I'm a native speaker working in the office.
I don't think the best way to fight intolerance is contributing to the brain drain, but that's the only solution we have for now.
Just look at Germany, biggest economy in EU. It's treating it's migrant workers as slaves. Feeding failing pension system from them. Not giving any rights for innovation(you can't start business without German national cofounder) or even any motivation to innovate(high taxes, anti-success culture, strict residence laws).
When you mention any problems with Germany to Germans, they're so protective and unwilling to change that their only response is "go back home if you don't like it here".
That's an outright lie, you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a Schengen country.
> strict residence laws
Ever tried to get a Greencard? And if you have the financial backing, up until the start of the Ukraine war there were plenty of states with a golden visa program.
I think you're being too harsh on german and european policymakers. I agree, the climate for startups is abysmal and the room for improvement is huge, but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US.
Ok, let me be clear. I have a temporary residence in Germany. Before, i had a worker visa. I'm not allowed to start my own business with temporary residence here. Only if i have a German co-founder.
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/visa-service/buergerservi...
Not seeing any point here that forces you to have a german cofounder. It honestly sounds like you're experiencing difficulties working as a freelancer on a temporary residence permit, which I think is the case all around the world. I'd be glad for US natives to chime in, but from what I've read it's similar there.
From the remainder of your comment I take that you're russian/belarussian? If you have a permanent residence you're free to give up your citizenship, but yeah, it's not in the best interest for western states to make living amenable for you, due to state security. I'm pretty sure that regardless of my oppinion, you'd face similar difficulties in the US and elsewhere.
If germany is so hostile, why not migrate?
Now, you are right in a way that it is a choice to migrate there. My issue is with the weird belief that Europe is more inclusive when it is just false. It's like another manifestation of the quintessentially european inferiority complex that leads to comparisons with a weird, exaggerated caricature of what they think the US is. The truth is that Germany is less inclusive, provides less opportunities and is more xenophobic in almost all regards than America, unless I guess you are a white European migrant.
The remainder of you comment is a pretty one sided take. I think the US and EU don't give each other much if you want to migrate from outside the Schengen area.
I'm not a fan of my governments current policy on migration, nor that of the EU, but the truth is, until a large portion of voters dies, I'm limited in what I can do about it.
Lived in Germany for five years, 100% agree with this. The Germany Defense Squad is very real.
Germans are way pricklier about criticism of their country compared to Americans, which surprised me somewhat, given Americans' reputation for superpatriotism.
That's not to say you won't ever see the same kind response from some Americans (especially those further right), but what surprised me is that even centrist or center-left Germans of the kind you'll see on Reddit were so defensive, while centrist and center-left Americans are practically lashing themselves with a cat o' nine tails over how dumb the US is on many issues, and heartily agreeing with foreigners on criticism.
The US is winning now because they hit the jackpot with Elon Musk and SpaceX. Without SpaceX Europe would still be winning against the US in terms of rockets.
Now granted, one can argue that Elon Musk and SpaceX wouldn't have been possible in Europe, and that is partly true as well.
But US still got lucky that SpaceX happened right when they wanted private supply of ISS.
Insane amount of talent is wasted because of "so called" european language and cultural racism.
Companies are still "national" instead of european and talent is not appreciated. Taxes are sky high and so is national, cultural racism. You think a brilliant bulgarian scientist is treated the same by his French colleagues?
Until this changes and europeans will start treat their fellow europeans fairly nothing will improve.